INTRODUCTION 

The “Armenian genocide” allegations, which have never been on the agenda in the West, have been inflamed this year as April approaches, in accordance with the usual timing. In mid-March, the European Parliament called on EU member states to recognize the “Armenian genocide”. Towards mid-April, the US Department of State repeated the accusation that 1.5 million Armenians were massacred at the end of the Ottoman Empire. At the same time, the spiritual leader of the Catholics, the Pope, also referred to the 1915 events as the “Armenian genocide”. Finally, on April 15, the European Parliament adopted the definition of “genocide” for the 1915 events. Thus, the unity of many political and religious leaders of the “secular” West and Armenian religious and political leaders was once again seen. The events to be held against Turkey in Europe and the USA on April 24 may be a little more remarkable than in the past, but it is basically nothing but the usual partisanship.  

When that bias is traced back to the past, it will be seen that the instigators of the Armenian revolts in the Ottoman Empire were the religious and political authorities of the West. It is a pity that those Westerners have settled in a prestigious position such as judges today. The purpose of this article is to show the unity before those provocations and the grave result after those provocations, on its religious-political foundations, and then to make some proposals. 

LIVING TOGETHER IN ISLAM AND ARMENIANS 

Our first encounter with Armenians was during the Great Seljuk State. There were Armenian troops in the Byzantine army, which faced the Turkish army under the command of Sultan Alp Arslan in Manzikert. However, according to Armenian and Syriac historians, they did not participate in the war and turned away. Explaining the reason for this, the Syriac historian Mihael says that the Byzantines tried to impose their “corrupt sect” on the Armenians for a long time [1]. As of today, the Armenians, who had been hostile towards Turkey and Azerbaijan for more than a century, actually became loyal citizens to the state both in the Seljuk and Ottoman Empires, and were called “Teb’a-yı sadıka (loyal citizens)” by the Ottomans.

It is with the confidence of their loyalty that after Mehmed II conquered Istanbul, he invited many Armenians in Anatolia and other parts of the world, settled them in this city, which he made the capital, and had the Armenian Patriarchate established [2].

Their abilities in jewellery, leather, architecture, Turkish art music and many other fields are generally very compatible with their socio-cultural and socio-economic attitudes. Because of their compatibility, Armenians were also in charge of many levels of the state even during the recent rebellions. What ensures the loyalty of the Armenians, who are different from our society in terms of both religion and language, is the kind reception they got from the Ottomans, which is also due to Islam's view of the “other”.

According to Islam, it is necessary to know and accept the differences of people in language, religion and colors. Because, in the Qur'an, it is said, “If Allah had willed, He would have made you one community” [3], “then your duty is only to deliver 'the message'” [4], and also, “one of His signs is the creation of the heavens and the earth, and the diversity of your languages and colors” [5]. The Prophet says, “O people, all people are children of Adam and Eve” [6]. As a matter of fact, in the first phase of the Islamic state, the Prophet and his companions accepted to live together with Jews, Christians and polytheists. It was the non-Muslims who spoiled the “ummah” with that diversity.

According to Islamic law, non-Muslims are called “dhimmis” and have equal rights with Muslims in terms of freedom. For this reason, it is essential to try to make Muslim and non-Muslim citizens happy in a sense of justice in Islam. It is because of this responsibility that Islamic states and societies, including the Seljuks and Ottomans, have always pleased their non-Muslim citizens. Western philosophers and scientists such as Voltaire [7] and Bernard Lewis [8] also accept this reality. This is how Muslims view the “other” and this is the reason why Armenians are “loyal citizens”. 

INABILITY TO ACCEPT LIVING TOGETHER IN CHRISTIANITY 

In Christianity, which the “Saint” Augustine transformed from a pacifist to a warrior, the “other” is almost what needs to be destroyed. The Crusades in the Middle Ages were organized by the highest authority, the popes, and almost all the states in the West participated in those expeditions. According to Pope Eugen IV, exterminating non-Christians is a great work to be done in the name of God [9]. In the campaign carried out in 1209 against the members of the Catharism, which is a mixed belief system of Manichaeism and Christianity, Christians in that region were murdered without discrimination between women and children. The answer given by Archpriest Arnaud Amaury to the knights who asked how they would separate “the servants of God from the heretical Cathars” before the massacre was terrible: “Kill them all, God separates his servants” [10]. The cultural heritage of the past lies at the root of all the known massacres and genocides committed by Westerners in Europe, Africa and America throughout history.

According to the information given by Leo Huberman, one of the Christian writers, by counting all the expeditions, large and small, over 150 Crusades were organized on people of different faiths [11]. On the other hand, history has not recorded a single so-called “Crescent Campaign” in which all Muslim countries united and marched against non-Muslims. As a matter of fact, Nixon, one of the former US presidents, cited historian Willy Durant as a source and stated that the religious wars in history “are the products of Christians” [12]. 

WESTERN STATES AS PROVOCATEURS OF ARMENIANS

The above-mentioned harmonious lifestyle of the Armenians, starting from the Great Seljuks, turned into a complete strife as of 1890. It can be said that the first Armenian revolt in 1890 corresponds to a rather late date if one remembers that Napoleon provoked religious and ethnic differences in the Ottoman Empire during his campaign to Egypt in 1798, and that the Serbs who followed those provocations rebelled in 1804 and the Greeks in 1821. It is already known that Russia has been trying to break up the Ottoman Empire long ago. As a result, due to the internal events that have been looming since 1798, the Ottoman Empire, that is, the Russian Tsar Nicholas I, used the phrase in 1853, the division of the "sick man's" lands by Germany, Austria, France, England and Russia was strengthened in the minds of Western politicians. Although they sometimes disagreed on some issues between them, they agreed to break up the Ottoman Empire.

The Treaty of Berlin of 1878 was a very important trigger for the initiation of the Armenian revolts. After the Ottoman-Russian war of 1877-78, when Russia occupied some cities in the north-east of Anatolia, it started to provoke the Armenians there against the Ottomans. At that time, France was also organizing Catholics. Thereupon, Britain started to propagate Protestantism among the Armenians, and in the meantime, it began to instill separatist feelings. Some Armenians, who were under the influence of the propaganda of those three states, tried to get at least some autonomy for themselves in the 1878 Congress of Berlin, but they could not succeed. The separatist Armenian representatives, who returned empty-handed from that congress, in which the Ottoman Empire lost 287,510 square kilometers of land, took the previous Serbian and Greek revolts as an example. With the support of the Western states, with the participation of some Armenians inside and outside the Ottoman Empire, organizations such as Social Democrat Hunchakian Party in Switzerland and the Armenian Revolutionary Federation in the Caucasus, which was then under the control of Russia, started to carry out some terrorist acts. Even the loss of life caused by those terrorist organizations in their conflict with the Ottoman forces was committed as genocide in Europe. But not all of them were truly mass revolt. They made an unsuccessful attempt in Van in 1888, and finally succeeded in starting a rebellion in Erzurum in 1890. In the same year, separatist Armenians killed some Armenians they saw as pro-Ottoman in Istanbul [13].

In that situation, which was created by the provocations of France, England and Russia, Armenians were also turned against each other according to the Catholic and Gregorian/Orthodox sects. The reason for this is that France and England support Catholic Armenians, while their rivals Russia support Orthodox/Gregorian Armenians. The beginning of the conflicts that broke out between those supports and the Armenians was the year 1890. The Kumkapi Demonstration (Bloody Sunday) on July 15, 1890, the assassination attempt against Patriarch Horen Ashekyan on April 27, 1894, and the events between Catholic and Orthodox Armenians in those days, especially in Kumkapi, are exemplary events.

The most important of the Armenian revolts, which were seen in almost every part of Anatolia, and the mass attacks against the rape and life of the Muslim population, were experienced in Erzurum, Merzifon, Kayseri, Trabzon, Yozgat, Sasun-Siirt, Zeytun-Maraş, Istanbul, Van and Adana. It has been determined that the Armenians, who rebelled in the Zeytun-Maraş region between October 24, 1895 and January 28, 1896, fled from Mersin to Marseille under the auspices of England, and was registered as F. O. 424/184 No: 426 in the British Foreign Affairs Archive. It turned out that those who led the Second Sasun-Siirt Rebellion were Caucasian Armenians who were trained in the Russian army. During all these events, there were sometimes “mutualism” (killing each other) incidents between Muslims and Armenians [14].

Another very important event in that process was the fact that the Armenians planted a bomb in the car of Sultan Abdulhamid II on July 21, 1905, known as the “Yildiz assassination attempt”.

The last example today that the Armenians chose massacre as the only way is the massacres they committed in Khojaly in the Karabakh region of Azerbaijan. 

ANSWERS TO SOME ALLEGATIONS 

As it is known, while discussing Turkish-Armenian relations, some events in 1915 are brought to the agenda, but the Armenian massacres, which became more and more intense between 1890 and 1915, are ignored. However, if we look at 1915, aside from the valid explanations that there is no legal situation in line with the definition of “genocide”, Even the fact that Turkey keeps its archives open and demands that the other side open its archives and allow historians to work together is convincing evidence that Turkey cannot be accused of genocide.

On the other hand, it should not be forgotten that the deportation practice was the only way to stop the revolts and massacres of the Armenians, according to the situation of the Ottoman Empire at that time. Because since the French attack on Egypt in 1798, the Ottoman state was busy with wars and revolts. Before 1915, when the deportation was implemented, the Italo-Turkish War of 1911-1912 and the Balkan War of 1912-1913 were fought. The year 1915, when the deportation was implemented, was in the First World War, which started in 1914 and ended in 1918, which was the period when the Ottoman army was engaged in frontal wars on all sides; and this period is the years when it recruited hundreds of thousands of civilians and sent them to fronts such as Çanakkale and Yemen, which are called “the one going to front does not come back”. In the meantime, taking into account that exactly 25 years have passed between 1890, when the first mass Armenian events began, and 1915, when the deportation took place, it is sufficient to understand that the Ottomans resorted to deportation as a last resort.

It is also a very bad situation that some local writers seem to accept the Western theses by pointing out the establishment of the Hamidiye regiments as a defect. It is not possible to confirm that thesis. Because the Hamidiye regiments, which were decided by Sultan Abdulhamid II in 1890 when the rebellion started, and started to work a year later, were established because the main army of the Ottoman Empire was engaged in wars in different regions due to internal and external wars and that those regiments fought both against the Armenian revolts and against the Russian occupation. 

RESULT: SOME NEW FACTS AND PROPOSALS 

One of the saddest facts is that the Westerners, who were the main promoters and supporters of the Armenian revolts and massacres of the Muslim population in the last period of the Ottoman Empire, are now settled in the position of judges instead of criminals. If Westerners are sincere in investigating those periods, they should know that they should accept their own actions being questioned during those events, and that they should face their own history while calling on us to “face our history”. It should be explained to them that they made two friendly nations hostile to each other and had them killed.

Most importantly, it is necessary to find the opportunity to explain to the people in Europe, America and Armenia, that is, to the civil society, that Western politicians use the issue only for abuse, both yesterday and today, and activities should be carried out in that direction. In particular, it should be explained to the Armenian administration that it would be more beneficial to develop commercial and political contacts rather than to dispute with Turkey and Azerbaijan.

----------------------- 

REFERENCES

[1] Turan, Osman; Selçuklular Zamanında Türkiye, Turan Neşriyat Yurdu Yayınları, İstanbul, 1975, p. 29-30.

[2] Dabağyan, Levon Panos; Türkiye Ermenileri Tarihi, 2. Baskı, IQ Kültür Sanat Yayıncılık, İstanbul, 2004, p. 464-465.

[3] Holy Qur’an , Al-Ma'idah 5/48; An-Nahl 16/93.

[4] Holy Qur’an, Ali ‘Imran 3/20, Ar-Ra’d 13/40, An-Nahl 16/82, Ash-Shuraa 42/48.

[5] Holy Qur’an, Ar-Rum 30/22.

[6] Taberî.

[7] Voltaire; Türkler, Müslümanlar ve Ötekiler, 2. Baskı, İlkbiz Yayınevi, İstanbul, 2006, p. 19.

[8] Lewis, Bernard; İslam Dünyasında Yahudiler, Translated by Bahadır Sina Şener, İmge Kitabevi, 1996, Ankara, p. 32-33.

[9] Lamartine, Alphonse de; Osmanlı Tarihi, 2. baskı, Kapı Yayınları, İstanbul, 2011, p. 195.

[10] Salunier, Mine Gökçe; Gülün Öteki Adı, Cep Kitapları, İstanbul, 1990, p. 16-17.

[11] Huberman, Leo; Feodal Toplumdan Yirminci Yüzyıla, Translated by Murat Belge, İletişim Yayınları, İstanbul, 2002, p. 29.

[12] Nixon, Richard; Zamanı Yakalamak, Translated by Fatoş Dilber, Milliyet Yayınları, İstanbul, 1993, p. 177.

[13] Armaoğlu, Fahir H; Siyasî Tarih, Ankara Üniversitesi SBF Yayınları, 1975, Ankara, p. 272-279, 286-291.

[14] Binark, İsmet; Asılsız Ermeni İddiaları ve Ermenilerin Türklere Yaptıkları Mezalim (Yazılı Arşiv Belgeleri ve Fotoğraflarla), Ankara Ticaret Odası Yayını, Ankara, 2005, p. 36-66.